ERP soultions to FMCG Distribution

Hi to All,
We are an FMCG Distribution company in the Middle East, we are currently using MS Great Plains 10, however we are considering changing GP because we need some other alternatives to our business issues that GP doesn’t handle at the moment.
What we are looking for is an ERP that can handle and give us accurate results in regard of:
1- Distribution to many channels (Wholesalers – Retailers – Cash vans – K/Accounts ...etc).
2- Distribution of thousands of items to various suppliers.
3- Handling of numerous and complex sales offers to those customers.( we struggled to handle this in GP)
4- Controlling the stock costs and margins as per the price structures of the suppliers.
5- Ability to control and calculate profitability in many dimensions ( Per Sales Division/ Per Brand / Per Channel …etc)
And there for we are currently assessing both Oracle and SAP, But I need your help in this assessment and any thoughts, Kindly.
Regards,

>We are an FMCG Distribution company in the
>Middle East, we are currently using MS Great
>Plains 10, however we are considering changing
>GP because we need some other alternatives to
>our business issues that GP doesn?t handle at the moment.
>What we are looking for is an ERP that can
>handle and give us accurate results in regard of:
>1- Distribution to many channels (Wholesalers ?
>Retailers ? Cash vans ? K/Accounts ...etc).
>2- Distribution of thousands of items to various suppliers.
>3- Handling of numerous and complex sales offers
>to those customers.( we struggled to handle this in GP)
>4- Controlling the stock costs and margins as
>per the price structures of the suppliers.
>5- Ability to control and calculate
>profitability in many dimensions ( Per Sales
>Division/ Per Brand / Per Channel ?etc)
>And there for we are currently assessing both
>Oracle and SAP, But I need your help in this
>assessment and any thoughts, Kindly.

You're on the right track in one sense. You're going about this
by identifying specific issues you need to overcome. What I think
needs to happen though is to go into more detail. Many channels and
many items is a condition you seem to have. But specifically what
about that are you missing out in the current software? I'm suspecting
by your overall list we're talking pricing and costing matrices,
and various calculations of profit based on that?

If that's all you need then large scale manufacturing systems like
Oracle and SAP are going to be huge $ without the big benefit.
(presuming the systems we're talking are their flagships)
SAP has their B1 product which may be more suited. (depending
on size) Other *distribution* specific products are likely
to give you much more. Infor has SXe which is on a scale of
thousands of products and focuses on those pricing and
costing issues. It's not alone - Microsoft's Navision,
Prophet 21, Apprise, and a load of smaller players.
Get more detail and then ask each of those companies how they
handle the scenario's you're looking for.

If you think GP 'costs you a lot' prepare to mortgage the farm relative to what Oracle or SAP would cost to license and fully implement and for ongoing support.

What I meant about adding a '0' is if a Tier 2 project were to cost $200,000, than a Tier 1 project would often cost $2,000,000. Notice the extra zero. I was kind of joking, but I'm not the far off base from reality.

If you find a Tier 2 solution (or one that might even be free like NAV, but again, that shouldn't be the primary reason to choose), it would likely be far cheaper to fly and house a consultant or two for the 12 months of the project, than to put in SAP or Oracle who, even if they have consultants local to your country, would be 50% to 100% more per hour and the number of hours for implementation would be 2x to 3x.

>Guys , One of the criteria considered in giving a soul agent the products in
>our region is which system he is using.
>Tier 2 and tier three is very easy to clone it and mislead the auditors from
>the Original company while their audit to their agent

"Soul agent"??

In any case, that's exactly the type of behavior (and not
computer related in any way) that defines the space.
Who other than the hugest of huge companies would be
more interested in systems than how much product a
reseller could sell? Or even have the auditor to
need to mislead?

>Tier 1. 10 years back they start using the isupplier and icustomer
>which allows your customers to place their orders
>and allow your supplier to see the on hand Qty on the shelves it builds
>trust between the companies all over the world.

There are many Tier 2's that do the same, and a number
of Tier 3's that started doing that 10 years before the
Tier 1's did.

PS. I don't buy the "trust" thing either. What it breeds is
control freak bullies.

Hi,
The key most important thing is to define your business requirements clearly which
requires a lot of effort. And on the net you will find many templates for selecting ERPs. But the template alone will not help. One needs to sit with business users to carefully get this requirment straight. Which then can be floated to various software vendors for RFP( In your case Oracle and SAP). And ofcourse depending on budget constraints and value that Oracle of SAP can bring, you will select the ERP vendor. But key is not just selecting (though very important) Oracle and/ or SAP if you do not select right implementation partner.It could lead to disaster. It is not only good to have User Acceptance Tests during implementation of ERP. But a team of internal auditors (kind of not neccessary auditors) is good to have to verify the implementation is going in the right direction. Till the go live and post implementation.Frankly PM principles need to adopted very religiously. Any ways good luck for your selection process.

I'm surprised you are on GP10 as it isn't really designed to operate outside of the US in terms of localization compliance. Phone support hours are usually US based and very few vars exist outside the US.

Without knowing more it sounds like Dynamics NAV may be a good fit. It's built on dimensional analysis of everything, including profitability, has very strong distribution functionality and whatever gaps may exist between the standard product and your needs can be rapidly customized as that was the way it was designed. It's probably localized for your area and has all the various language options.

The best part (at least it works this way in the US) is that you would get a 100% credit of the retail value of your GP towards NAV assuming you are current on maintenance. That may mean little to no cost in new software.

This is not the reason to choose a system alone, but the money save on software licensing could be spent on a more robust implementation and deeper level of customizations if they are needed in your case. (Have no idea if they are).

I would like to mention that we are in Jordan, Yes the difficulties in pricing and costing are their in addition to difficulties in monitoring and costing of offers, we may also facing difficulties in regard of expert consultants in such ERP's mentioned ( Like Infor , Prophet 21, Apprise and others ).

May be that's why we are looking for Oracle or SAP .. we need stability in the after sale support .. also its important to note that we are growing fast and this is another reason to look for a tier one supplier with a good service .. I would like to know your thoughts on that and your help will be very appreciated.

>I would like to mention that we are in Jordan, Yes the difficulties
>in pricing and costing are their in addition to difficulties in
>monitoring and costing of offers, we may also facing difficulties in
>regard of expert consultants in such ERP's mentioned ( Like Infor ,
>Prophet 21, Apprise and others ).
>
>May be that's why we are looking for Oracle or SAP .. we need
>stability in the after sale support .. also its important to note
>that we are growing fast and this is another reason to look for a
>tier one supplier with a good service .. I would like to know your
>thoughts on that and your help will be very appreciated.

There's a very understandable need to have support. And it's
also completely understandable to need room for growth. But
"support & growth" are the requirements, not "Oracle or SAP".
It's not like those are the only two players in the world,
and isn't the *slightest* reason to insist on Tier 1.

Tier 1 is going to mean enough teams (plural) consultants
that they could be flown in from anywhere. You could just
as well fly in a team of people from other products. You
can generally get 24x7 support on the products you're looking
at, you only need a handful of support people in your local
area. So absolutely you should be looking at some of those
products with a local presence. Legit concerns, but nothing
that suggests Tier 1.

I'd find it hard to believe something like MS Navision doesn't
have all the experts and support you need in your area. Not
to mention SAP's *non* Tier 1 product B1 is originally from
your general area. And I'm sure there are some of those
Tier 2 products mentioned that would have the support -
all of them have the growth factor covered.

If the only thing keeping you back from the Tier 2/3 products
is support, then it looks like the only real reason for Tier 1
is career/empire building. And the company suffers at the
expense of that. There hasn't been a single thing in your
discussion so far that says Tier 1. Instead it looks more like
there's some things that say it would be a big mistake.

Appreciated your reply, but it seems that I need to illustrate more to you:

Why we are thinking of Oracle or SAP:
1- We are facing difficulties in GP as I mentioned, and more technical issues on the other side. GP needs a huge disk space and high resources in regard of Users hardware in order for the company's network to work smoothly. It's not a web based technology as well. We have around 70 users and our daily transactions are in thousands... this is because we have around 3000 sku's with more than 1000 invoice daily.
2- Great Plains doesn’t have CRM or WMS .. I think our business needs these solutions , due to multiple channels , products , suppliers , warehouses .. and complex promotion schemes .
3- We considered our selves working on a mid tier solutions , so we look to upgrade the technology to avoid entering in the same troubles that we are facing .
4- Our Management needs a lot of multidimensional profitability analysis and we didn't find this in GP.

My questions here , why you said that the company could pay the price in regard of implementing SAP or Oracle ? Is it from the investment cost point of view ? The company could pay more but could get better results, is there a mid tier technology that can handle and solve the above issues with lower cost and simpler than Oracle or SAP? Do you think we are on the wrong path?
Who can I compare MS NAV with SAP? What should I do? I need your kind help

>Appreciated your reply, but it seems that I need to illustrate more to you:

No, not really. You need to illustrate in depth, not in more
breadth. But at least what you say strengths the exact same
points again.

>Why we are thinking of Oracle or SAP:

No one should think of Oracle or SAP - they should think of
what is required. And then Oracle or SAP meets those requirements.
This is extremely important and is at the heart of the advice
you get on this forum. Doing it that way is the wrong way around.
It makes the choice first and then tries to justify it instead of
fitting the right product to your needs.

>1-We are facing difficulties in GP as I mentioned, and more
>technical issues on the other side. GP needs a huge disk space and
>high resources in regard of Users hardware in order for the
>company's network to work smoothly. It's not a web based technology
>as well. We have around 70 users and our daily transactions are in
>thousands... this is because we have around 3000 sku's with more
>than 1000 invoice daily.

Do you have any idea of the resources Oracle or SAP will need?
It's going to make GP look tiny. Very tiny. And it's not just
machine resources, the people resources needed are going to
be even larger. Tier 1 products deliver safety at the expense
of $. If $ are a concern, then SAP or Oracle aren't your products.

Just that one statement here should be all sorts of red flags of
exactly why SAP and Oracle are bad choices for you.

That in no way says Oracle or SAP. Any one of the other products
out there have CRM or WMS available. In fact, if this is really
part of the requirements then there may well be a different set of
packages you want to be looking at. But CRM and WMS mean different
things to different people. You really need to define the needs.
CRM or WMS is not a need, it's a class of products. You need to
start listing, the problems the multi-channel and complex promotions
cause you that need to be solved.

>3-We considered our selves working on a mid tier solutions , so we
>look to upgrade the technology to avoid entering in the same
>troubles that we are facing .

That's flawed thinking. Let's face it, you simply need to solve
your problems. Throwing more money at it does one thing - it relieves
you of your money. Throwing more smarts at it is what will solve
your issues. Just because GP isn't doing a job doesn't mean you
condemn a whole class of products. Going from a generic Tier 2
to an industry specific Tier 2 *is* an upgrade. In fact in many
cases a generic Tier 2 to an industry specific Tier 3 is an
upgrade just because it's such a better fit with better industry
functionality.

>4-Our Management needs a lot of multidimensional profitability
>analysis and we didn't find this in GP.

I'm extremely surprised. Almost all of the big name Business Intelligence
support GP. You can't tell me the Microsoft product isn't available
for GP. Any number of other big BI systems can be used with all of
those Tier 2 products as well. This raises another red flag. All
this says is you've got BI needs that have to be taken into consideration.

>My questions here , why you said that the company could pay the
>price in regard of implementing SAP or Oracle ?

Because it's more and more clear it's a bad choice.

> Is it from the investment cost point of view ?

Investment of $, time, and resources.

> The company could pay more but could get better results,

If you mean pay more for some product other than SAP or Oracle and
get better results, then no that's not what I meant. It's likely
you can pay *less* as well as get better results.

>is there a mid tier technology that can handle and solve the above
>issues with lower cost and simpler than Oracle or SAP?

Absolutely. *Any* Tier 2 that's well chosen to meet your needs,
when and if your needs are well defined, can do that job.
The key is *not* the Tier 2 part, but the well chosen part.
GP was probably a good choice when you were small and simple.
You do need something more wide reaching if you're talking about
pricing issues, and WMS. But that in no way says Tier 1.

> Do you think we are on the wrong path?

I think it's been overly clear I've said that from the very first post.
And it because more and more clear.

>Who can I compare MS NAV with SAP? What should I do? I need your kind help

Get a consultant. Never compare one product with another.
Always compare your needs with one product, and then your needs
with another product. Which one meets the needs best is the
best product for you. Without any experience of that, then
you need an independent consultant to help you write up
your needs. And then compare the needs to products, not
products to each other.

I didn't try to defend or justify our approach towards Oracle or SAP, but I really need help. I have already put our requirements in depth, if you need me to send it to you...then I will.
Unfortunately , we aren’t in the US or Europe , the available solutions are very limited , as I told you before there aren't good consultants and even with mid-tier solutions like GP we faced a lot of troubles , and more important it costs us a lot.
If you know good consultants in our area which can offer us better solutions and are their recommendations are well respected, then please let me know.
Please let me know also if you need my personal e-mail so we can discuss more...
Thanks a lot.

Agree with Mr. Crawford, you should think first on your business
requirements, and then, only then think on the product that solves them.
Also check if your current product has un-explored features that could help.

An ERP database is designed for transactional use, collect data, but not
for analysis. As Mr. Crawford said, there are good choices for a Business
Intelligence BI systems that can help you in this matter and work with
Dynamics GP: Business Objects, Cognos, Pentaho. Also with your current
database manager, SQL server (2005 and 2008 ) you could build an analytic
database.

MS has a CRM product, you can use on demand (cloud, hosted) or installed on
your own servers (on-premise).

There is not, one product fits all requirements, all products have some sort
of customization tools to adapt to customer's particular needs. SAP has ABAP
and netweaver, Epicor has customization workbench - powerbuilder , and
Dynamics GP has Dexterity, VB, sharepoint, and others tools.

Maybe, you should do some sizing for your current installation.

WMS: We have built a web-based WMS solution, that works with Dynamics GP
based on a retail customer requirement.

Think if you have to invest big dollars on a new ERP system implementation
or can handle improving your current software to solve your actual issues.

Guys , One of the criteria considered in giving a soul agent the products in
our region is which system he is using.
Tier 2 and tier three is very easy to clone it and mislead the auditors from
the Original company while their audit to their agent

Tier 1. 10 years back they start using the isupplier and icustomer
which allows your customers to place their orders
and allow your supplier to see the on hand Qty on the shelves it builds
trust between the companies all over the world.

I'm very sorry but im a fan of Thomas Friedman Book about the flat world.

In addition, i would like to bring to your kind attention that i have
selected Oracle eBS for an Automotive Company in the middle east
They have 140 Employees *Only* and helped them to grow and buy new
Car Agency.

Initially they were the soul agent of three Brands. and they were able to
buy another two.

>I didn't try to defend or justify our approach towards Oracle or
>SAP, but I really need help. I have already put our requirements in
>depth, if you need me to send it to you...then I will.

They are for you to do your job, not for me.

>Unfortunately , we aren't in the US or Europe , the available
>solutions are very limited , as I told you before there aren't good
>consultants and even with mid-tier solutions like GP we faced a lot
>of troubles , and more important it costs us a lot.

You're really, really, really missing the point. You can fly a consultant
in at any point. And it sounds like you're associating all mid-tier
solutions with GP. GP isn't the right product for you apparently.
And believe me, if GP costs you a lot, you're whole company will
be belly up with an Oracle or SAP. You'd probably spend ten times
what GP costs for a year just on the study to figure out how to
use an SAP or Oracle because they're so complicated. And then
another 10 times on just the hardware you'll need. And then there's
the additional hires for administrators, added business analysts,
and on and on.

>If you know good consultants in our area which can offer us better
>solutions and are their recommendations are well respected, then
>please let me know.

Last I checked there might not be an exact chapter locally but
Apics International was either holding classes or testing.
Go to them for recommendations.

>Please let me know also if you need my personal e-mail so we can
>discuss more...
>Thanks a lot.

nasrishnoudi,
if you narrowed down your requirments to include CRM functionality, then GP and CRM 4 aleady have microsoft built and supported integartors for both products. If you need more depth in analysis of transactions, have you conducted a GAP analysis between your requirments and the AA or Analysis Cubes feature sets, that you proberly are licenced for already in GP.

Yea, to that point I do see in general a lot of 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' syndrome in ERP. IMHO the biggest pain people feel with their current ERP solution is poor or inadequate reporting. New solutions come with better reporting, but most demonstrate this through a smoke and mirrors link to Excel or something.

For a fraction of the cost of new and with vastly more capability than the reporting capabilities of new ERP systems, you should look at solutions like Tableau or Qlikview with your existing systems. If the data is in your existing system, these solutions can get it out and present it in ways that will boggle the mind of mere mortals. If you decide a few years down the road you really do need a new ERP solution for some other reason, they '3rd party' solutions would work just as well with the new systems and can also talk to and combine data from any other standalone solutions you may have since they merely process the data you have via SQL, ODBC calls etc.